Fortunately even with all of the Bush anti-union activity, union members accounted for 12.4 percent of employed wage and salary workers in 2008, slightly up from 12.1 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.8 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private industry workers that is now only 7.6 percent.
The number of workers belonging to a union rose by 428,000 to 16.1 million. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.
>Much of this decline has been due to the GOP's success in winning presidential elections. Prior to the 2008 election, Republicans had won 5 of the last eight presidential elections.
Millions of workers have seen their right to organize eliminated or severely restricted, their basic human rights have been trampled, and businesses have essentially been given free rein to make it as difficult as possible for their employees to organize.
Many anit-union legal firms brag that they have never lost a lobor election for their clients and use every trick in their anti-union book to thwart a union victory. Corporations also start becoming very generous with wage, salary and benefit increases before an election. Another trick to ask the best union leaders if they would like a management position.
Labor Protections Stolen From Large Categories of Workers
Some of the Bush Board’s most egregious rulings have denied labor protections for wide swaths of workers.
• 45,000 disabled workers have lost their right to organize
• 51,000 teaching and research assistants have lost their right to organize
• 2 million temporary workers have had their right to organize severely limited
• 8 million workers, including 1.4 million charge nurses, leadmen and load
supervisors, are currently facing the loss of their organizing rights
Human Rights Trampled
Workers’ basic human rights have been undermined. The Bush Board undermined workers’ fundamental right of association when it ruled that a company could impose a blanket ban on off-duty fraternizing by its employees in 2005. The company was effectively given license to punish workers simply for having a friendly gathering at the local pizza parlor, for example.
In another decision, the Bush Board denied non-union workers the right to have a co-worker present during a disciplinary meeting, even though all workers – union and non-union – have the same right to concerted activity under federal law.
In a particularly disturbing decision, the Bush Board ruled in 2004 that it was acceptable for a company to fire a female worker for asking a fellow employee to support her charges of sexual harassment in testimony before a state agency.
Hypocrisy and Unfairness Abound in Bush Board s Decisions
The Bush Board has shown its hypocrisy by applying double standards to supervisors’ anti-union and pro-union conduct. When a supervisor campaigns against a union, the NLRB deems it “free speech.” When a supervisor campaigns for a union, however, the Bush Board has, on occasion, overturned the entire union election.
In a 2004 decision, the Bush Board ruled that an election was fair even though the union did not receive a full list of workers’ addresses, to which it is entitled by law. The company, of course, had access to 100 percent of the workers, had hired expensive anti-union consultants, and won the election, 161-121.
In two particularly petty decisions, the Bush Board allowed one employer to fire striking workers because the union started a strike four hours later than planned, and another to fire protesting employees for violating property rights after they left the company’s parking lot 15 minutes late.
The examples go on. In addition to the instances detailed above, the Bush Board had allowed greater leeway for union-busting lockouts, weakened already weak remedies for NLRA violations, and underutilized the NLRB’s strongest law enforcement tools.
And the rollback is not over. Several cases are currently pending before the Board that pose a danger to workers’ rights protections for millions of American workers and to the efficacy of the most successful worker organizing methods – voluntary union recognition.
Once the dust clear on health care, Obama needs to strengthen America's labor laws and pass the The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The strengthening of unions will strengthen the American middle class. The blance between labor and management has swung way too far to the right.
source: THE HONORABLE GEORGE MILLER • SENIOR DEMOCRATIC MEMBER • COMMITTEE ON EDUCATIONAND THE WORKFORCE • UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES • JULY 13, 2006
source: edlabor.house.gov/publications/NLRBreport071306.pdf
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